I love that the word passion is in the word compassion. My compassion for the underdog has become one of the reasons why I volunteer thousands of hours to my passion project, Creatively United for the Planet, in support of our community.

I suppose I’ve always related to the underdog having grown up in foster care and mostly alone. My happiest memories are those I experienced in the company of nature, my nearest and dearest friend during the majority of my most impressionable years….And nature, my friend, has been and continues to be very much the underdog given the lack of respect and compassion it has received since these lands were colonized a little more than 150 years ago.

Fortunately the forest and the ocean were never far from my reach as my early attempts to make friends often resulted in me being bullied. For three years of my young life, the only children I could find within walking distance of where I lived were shockingly malnourished and living in squalor in an abandoned shed in the bush at the back of the property adjoining where I lived in Campbell River from 1968-1970.

They were a First Nations boy and girl about 4 or 5 years old and I’ll never forget their faces. They were sickly and sad — their clothes were all but rags, and the floor of their “house” consisted of dirt and rotting boards, some empty cans and little else. They just stared at me when I stumbled upon them and didn’t speak a word or respond to me.

I was too young to understand why they lived or acted like this and only knew they didn’t want anything to do with me. I was sad for them and couldn’t understand why they didn’t want a new friend to play with.

When I mentioned them to the adults in my life, I was told to forget it and strictly forbidden to have anything more to do with them. It haunts me to this day, especially the lack of compassion or concern that was shown by others.

I have come to see that First Nations rights, social justice issues and the destruction of our natural world are directly related. The systematic dismantling of families, culture, the environment and a complete lack of compassion and respect for indigenous values and wisdom has led to the crisis we are now in.

Just think for how many decades we’ve been negatively conditioned to see those who care about nature as “treehuggers,” “hippies,” “conspirarists,” “bleeding hearts” and on it goes. It seems compassion has been become increasingly more commodified like so many other things.

Fortunately, we are awakening. Part of my personal awakening and my growing compassion for people and planet led to me pouring my heart and soul into supporting those I saw doing the hero work to raise awareness and bring action to important environmental and social justice issues affecting us all.

I recognized that it would take creativity and compassion to help rebrand “environmentalism and prejudice” so that we could move away from anger-based activism to compassionate, caring communities of people who recognize that we are empowered in togetherness, resulting in healthier, happier compassionate communities that benefit all.

Given I was maxed on the amount of money I could give to non-profits and charitable organizations, I gave, and continue to give, of my time, skills and energy and invite you to check out CreativelyUnited.org where you’ll find fascinating videos, stories, events, resources and learn more about the many non-profits and organizations in our community making a difference.

We live in one of the most beautiful places in the world. Our Karma has created the good fortune that we are here and not living in industrial China or the slums of India or war torn Syria without any possibility of hope.

We can no longer be complacent. It’s our right and our responsibility to create the change we want to see in the world, because we can! Many can’t and can only dream of doing so.

On this note, having a system of Proportional Representation can really make a tremendous difference. We have a historic opportunity this fall to take part in a referendum that could potentially change this archaic voting system so that every vote moving forward counts.

By doing so, we can actually move towards a more compassionate ways of living vs fossil fuel corporate led initiatives that are destroying this beautiful land, our water, air, democracy and trampling indigenous rights, and destroying cultures.

By having the ability to have every vote count, we can elect people who are invested in the greater good of all and show the rest of the country what’s possible. In fact, only the US, Canada and the UK still use a the First Past the Post voting system that dates back centuries to ensure that wealth and power remained in the hands of those who already had it…it was based on the first horse to past the post during a horse race…unreal!

No wonder those with the most money and power are beginning campaigns of fear and confusion. I’ve already seen full page ads and editorials in corporate bought media…and using names very similar to FairVote Canada, like FairReferendum…ugh!

One compassionate initiative that could arise from having proportional representation is the creation of a basic income for all by simply raising the tax rate by a few percentage of those in the position to most afford it, namely multi-million/billion dollar corporations and the super wealthy.

For example, wrap you head around this…. It’s been said that if the wealth of the 12 richest people in the world was shared equally with the 7.8 billion people in this world, that everyone would be a millionaire.
Just think how that could change everything! If that isn’t compassion in action.

Had we had Proportional Representation in place as Trudeau promised us, I can assure you that we, the taxpayers, would not be having Site C and pipelines to pay for and initiatives like a basic income for all would be possible if we weren’t subsidizing rich oil companies. Real jobs could be created in giving real power to the people through solar installations on every building with affordable power free and carbon free using the sun.

If we want to regain control of our governments in favour of what’s best for people and planet, tell your friends, neighbours, get involved with non profits like FairVote BC and be sure to vote YES for Proportional Representation. Anything is better than the current archaic system we have.

The Dalai Lama has shared that we won’t have peace in the world until women and girls are treated equally. Makes sense, when we stop and think about this.

We can break the cycle of submission and suppression by voting not only with our dollars in how and where we spend our money, but in electing governments that truly share the power proportionally.

We are currently living and using up the resources of three planets in this region which is not very compassionate. However, solutions exist!

On Monday, July 16th, you can hear from local innovators and compassionately engaged community members making a difference.

This event will also be live streamed with a link for replay afterwards. If you would like to receive the link, please sign up on Creatively United.org. You will see the announcement on our home page.

Using the power of compassion, prayer and/or meditation, and lending your support to various non-profits and grassroot organizations like FairVoteBC, in whatever way you can, does make a positive difference.

I invite you to live with gratitude and compassion for every moment in the spirit of a compassionate one planet community.